General McChrystal may not have been the most politically savvy person in the lot, but at least he had a sense of humor.

In the infamous Rolling Stones article that cost McChrystal his job, it was mentioned that some of his team referred to themselves as Team America…  Team America being the exhaustingly hilarious movie by South Park creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, that mocks everything from American imperialism to authoritarian dictators to Matt Damon.

The Team America in the movie Team America is a group of self-important white people who who bulldoze over everyone and everything (Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids) to “save” the world.

Today, Marc Ambinder posted a picture of the patches that McChrystal’s team had made up!

I’m jealous.

Here’s my favorite scene from Team America when UN Weapons Inspector, Hans Blix, visits Kim Jong Il.  Hans Blix is HILARIOUS.

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It has been an interesting week on the Korean peninsula… with many things happening related to the sinking of the South Korean ship, the Cheonan.

On July 9, the UN Security Council released a statement about the sinking, “condemn[ing]” the attack but not placing the blame on North Korea.  So, no new sanctions on Kim Jong Il.

This statement comes out despite a seemingly exhaustive investigation by South Korea and many international partners that found that the Cheonan was sunk by a North Korean torpedo.

The North Koreans, who have steadfastly denied the attack, were ecstatic about the UN report, calling it a “great diplomatic victory.”

But then… today we get news that North Korea has released a new propaganda poster with a fist smashing a ship that is eerily similar to… the Cheonan!  The poster says “Ready to crush any attack with a single blow!” (via JoongAng).

I realize this isn’t the first instance of duplicity on the part of North Korea, but given how hard they lobbied the UN to not be blamed for the ship’s sinking, this poster just seems to be in poor taste.  It’s like OJ coming out with his If I Did It book one week after his acquittal (because doing it 10 years later is so much more classy).

Still, some folks in South Korea seem to be a bit skeptical about North Korea’s role.  That’s understandable.  It’s not like I believed everything George Bush said about the 9/11 attacks.  It’s not like I believed what George Bush said about anything.

But hopefully, an international consensus will be reached at some point.  Otherwise South Korea and America will continue to piss off everyone (everyone = China) with their planned military exercises in the Yellow Sea.  (Btw/ what happens in a planned military exercise?)

==

Map of where the Cheonan sank.

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I just finished Barbara Demick’s Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea.  I bought this precisely because I wanted a non-sensational account of life in North Korea.  I didn’t want to read about nuclear weapons or labor camps.

In many respects, the handful of people Demick interviews do lead normal lives.  They go to jobs they don’t necessarily like; the parents worry about their kids’ educations; and the kids struggle against the pressures of school, hormones, and parental expectations.

However, the differences are much more stark and unforgettable.

Most of the people interviewed ended up in Seoul by a string of chance events.  They all loved North Korea, and had no long-planted seed to defect.  But at the same time, almost all of them learned within minutes of crossing the Tumen River into China how different their lives would be.

When Dr. Kim defected into China, she came upon a bowl of rice sitting on the ground.  She couldn’t believe it because “she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen a bowl of pure white rice.”   Then she heard the dog and realized that “dogs in China ate better than doctors in Korea.”

All of those interviewed lived through the famine of the 90′s that likely killed between 1.0 to 3.0 million people.

Everyone in the book dealt with starvation, and those that lived were ridden with guilt over what they had done to survive.  Mi-ran, a schoolteacher, was never able to erase the images of her starving students and the reasons why she didn’t share her food with them.  Mrs. Song, a doting wife & mother, never forgave herself for her son’s death (this on the heels of her husband’s death the previous year and her mother-in-law’s death two years prior).

Mi-ran later discovered that that the two sisters who remained in North Korea were snatched in the middle in the night and taken to labor camps because she had defected.  And several of the mothers were never able to see their children again.

It goes on and on.  And these are the lives of the “ordinary lives” in North Korea.

I highly recommend this book.

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1. North Korea’s new propaganda poster It has been an interesting week on the Korean peninsula…...
2. Abai Village — a North Korean village in South Korea After seeing Naksansa, I took the bus back to Sokcho....
3. McChrystal’s Team America had patches! PATCHES! General McChrystal may not have been the most politically savvy...